![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/\nreeding.gif\")
We were
\n watching an insipid situation comedy the other day while correcting essays,
\n and we saw an actress in a "typical American family" yawn and say to
\n her daughter, "I’m bored, lets go to the movies." <\/p>\n
We couldn’t remember the last time that situation had come up in the Was this, we wondered, because the TV industry still feels itself locked In the Dowbrigade’s world, everybody reads. We carry reading material Is the rest of America really as lexaphobic as TV-land would have us We have also been following the rash of recent articles on product What kids especially see on television can profoundly affect their behavior The TV industry has shown that it isn’t above using its influence to If TV can agree that smoking is bad, can’t they come to a consensus Of course, they had financial motivation to put the kabash on smoking. The hospitals and insurance companies wish that everyone would live But we would argue that reading is as essential to American success Smoking is bad, reading is good. Lets see more of it on TV.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We were watching an insipid situation comedy the other day while correcting essays, and we saw an actress in a "typical American family" yawn and say to her daughter, "I’m bored, lets go to the movies." We couldn’t remember the … Continue reading
\n Dowbrigade household. But what struck us was that despite the fact that
\n people in the situation comedies were always doing something<\/em>,
\n eating or talking or playing games or choosing clothes or moving in or
\n out, they were never, ever, reading.<\/p>\n
\n in a struggle-to-the-death with the written word for the eyeballs of
\n America? How else to explain the almost complete absence of one of life’s
\n most elemental activities.<\/p>\n
\n with us wherever we roam, ready to cop a quick chapter, or article, or
\n essay between periods, or on the train, or waiting in line at the post
\n office. On the Boston subway, everybody is reading, usually a novel,
\n and a quick ride on the Red Line serves as a quick read on what’s being
\n read on campus.<\/p>\n
\n believe? According to a recent
\n study by the National Endowment for the Arts<\/a>, 47% of American adults still read literature (novels, short stories,
\n plays) and fully 57% read books of any kind. Not exactly numbers to be
\n crowing about, but enough that they ought to be represented in the public
\n figures and role models we see everyday on TV.<\/p>\n
\n placement <\/em>an increasingly popular form of marketing that isn’t
\n quite advertising, like the Coca-Cola cups casually strewn around the
\n on-set table in front of the judges in American Idol, or
\n Donald Trump knocking on the doors of the Mattel Corp. Come to
\n think of it, Donald Trump is product placement in and of himself.<\/p>\n
\n later in life. Why, thanks to Andy of Mayberry, our preferred methodology
\n for going fishing is to tie a piece of string around an old branch we
\n find on the way to the fishing hole. No matter that we haven’t caught
\n a thing in 40 years of trying.<\/p>\n
\n affect behavior. Look at smoking. When we were kids, half
\n the characters on TV smoked, including the cartoons. Between the programs
\n , Joe Camel fought it out with the Marlboro Man for the hearts and lungs
\n of America’s youth. Now smoking on air is verboten<\/em>, and the
\n entire habit is being excised from the American character and consciousness.<\/p>\n
\n that reading is good? Show people carrying around books, reading at odd
\n moments, discussing stories and ideas they had read? It’s not as though
\n they would need to make it up. People do read.<\/p>\n
\n Medical costs from smoking were threatening to bankrupt the healthcare
\n and insurance industries. In this rare case, the interests of a major
\n US industry parallel the interests of the majority of the population.<\/p>\n
\n to a ripe old age and then die quietly in their sleep, and we second
\n the motion. This would avoid costly long-term care as hearts and
\n lungs give out in bodies that otherwise have a lot of miles left on them.
\n Their model citizen never sees a doctor, never takes a sick day in his
\n entire life, and dies suddenly and painlessly. Hear, hear.<\/p>\n
\n and security as smoking is a threat, and that encouraging a cult of reading
\n will make Americans better workers, more informed consumers, and more
\n capable participants in the democratic process. Of course, that is assuming
\n that this is in the interests of the powers that control TV.<\/p>\n